Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Perinatal Mental Health Team

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Perinatal Mental Health Team

Welcome to the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough perinatal mental health team.

 

Perinatal mental health

We support mums and mums-to-be who are experiencing mental health Team logo challenges during pregnancy and the first year of motherhood.

We are a multi-disciplinary team of specialist mental health clinicians working across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, which aims to:

  • Offer a safe, empathic, and supportive service which holds women and their families’ experiences in mind.
  • Work closely with our colleagues in maternity and health visiting, and across the wider community organizations, to develop a seamless, integrated service for pregnant and new mums.
  • Increase awareness and understanding of mental health challenges in the local community and help reduce stigma.

Our philosophy

  • We prioritise building trusting relationships and being able to work alongside you and your family.
  • We believe that we need to consider a family’s needs as a whole during this significant time of change and stress
  • We hope to make the future better by targeting support at this critical stage in a family’s growth.
  • We aspire to be a team of blended skills and expertise which works creatively, thoughtfully and innovatively.

Our team

We have nurses, occupational therapists, doctors, psychologists, nursery nurses, support workers and social workers in our team and we are all trained to support women with serious and complex mental health difficulties during the perinatal period.

Meet the team

 

North Team

South Team

Administrator

Our friendly admin team are probably the first people you will come across in our service!

Beena Padmanabhan

Beena

 

Kate Taylor

 

Senior Admin

 

Wendy Belding

 

Team Manager  

 

Anne Merricks

 

Psychiatrist  

 

Mukhtar Awad Nasir

 

Nikolett Kabacs

Nikolett

Psychologist    

Fiona and Jo support women and their families to understand and overcome mental health difficulties as far as possible, helping them to be in the best position to bond with their baby.

Fiona Ram

Fiona

Jo Peterkin

Jo

Assistant Psychologist

 

 

Emilie Scowen

 

Senior Perinatal Specialist Nurse

Our nurses assess women and their families and work with them to make plans to support and help them through pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period.

Juli Broder

Juli

Sarah Ennis

Sarah

Debs Murthwaite

Debs

Emily McLaughlin

Emily

Laura Purran

Laura

Kellie Sargent

Kellie

Occupational therapist

Sarah and Nadean work with women during the perinatal period to enable wellbeing with the use of meaningful therapeutic activity.

Sarah Morrison

 

Nadean Saberton

 

 

 

Sam Vollenhoven

 

Nursery Nurse

Emily & Joy support families with everything “baby”, from play, attachment, feeding to developmental needs.

Emily Murdoch

Emily

Joy Willett

Joy

Support Worker

Clare provides practical support for women and their families to improve their functioning and well-being.

Clare Cornforth

Clare

 

Our partners

We work closely with obstetricians, midwives and health visitors and PWS to support the families in our care.

Midwives and obstetricians

Specialist mental health obstetricians and midwives ensure women get continuity of care with clinicians who have expertise in supporting those with mental health challenges. They work closely with the perinatal mental health team to support the family as they welcome their baby.

Pre-birth planning meetings encourage joined up thinking between all the people looking after the women and take into account a detailed birth plan made with the women to best support them before, during and after birth.

The hospitals are sometimes able to offer longer stays postnatally to give added support after birth.

Our partners

Rosie Hospital, Cambridge

Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon

Peterborough City Hospital

Obstetricians

Michelle Kemp

Michelle

Sangeeta Pathak

 

Michael Lumb

 

Alison Wilson

Alison

 

 

 

 

Midwives

Kaat de Backer

Kaat

Nicky Pearson-Day

Nicky

 

Lesley Edwards

Lesley

Health visitors

Hilda Beauchamp

Hilary

 

 

0-19 Healthy Child Programme – Health Visitors

Health visitors are qualified nurses or midwives with an additional specialist Community Public Health Nursing qualification. We work as part of the 0-19 Healthy Child Programme team to support you in your parenting journey, offering advice on a range of issues including infant feeding, sleep, child development and minor illnesses.

We can offer additional support in the form of ‘listening visits’ at home for parents experiencing mild to moderate anxiety and depression and other mental health concerns, and we are well-placed to refer you to community-based support groups and other resources to help you feel less isolated. If you  have concerns about how you are bonding with your baby, we can support you with reading your baby’s early cues and behaviours, and can offer video-based support (VIG) to increase your confidence.

We work closely with our colleagues in the specialist perinatal mental health team, and with your GP and midwife to co-ordinate our care in a way that you feel is best. We have a specialist health visitor for family mental health, as well as ‘champion’ health visitors in perinatal and infant mental health, who liaise with other professionals, and offer training and guidance to all our staff so that you feel confident in the advice and support you receive.

Referrals

We take direct referrals from GPs, midwives and health visitors. GPs can also refer via the Primary Care Mental Health Service. 

Parents and parents-to-be should contact their GPs in the first instance.

For urgent referrals for women experiencing a mental health crisis please call the First Response Service on the NHS 111 helpline and select option 2.

Information for professionals

We offer advice and support to other professionals. You can call our admin team on 0800 952 0060 and leave a phone number or e-mail address and a duty worker will contact you between 1-5pm Monday to Friday.

Professionals can make direct referrals – download this from the bottom of this page.

GPs can refer directly or via the Primary Care Mental Health Service. For guidance see our leaflet: Advice for GPs

For urgent referrals for women experiencing a mental health crisis, please call the First Response Service on the NHS 111 helpline and select option 2.

Download our leaflet: Advice for Professionals.

As a patient

As a patient, relative or carer using our services, sometimes you may need to turn to someone for help, advice, and support. 

Patient Advice and Liaison service  Contact the Trust